ART DIRECTION
For 10 months myself and a team in Bristol have been grinding away at redesigning/rebranding/redressing the visual component for the Mike & Mike radio show. Formerly a radio show on TV, now it was going to be a TV show on the radio. This required a new visual language and roadmap. My Sr. Creative Director Chris Mantzaris had been pushing for an editorial magazine look (esquire-esque) to be the backbone of the new direction. When I came on board I took that and ran with it. We had excellent design help, first with Geoff Bailey and company at Loyalkaspar for a short spell. Then our internal team of Jeremy Simches/Thomas Maloney/Lee Burg and Nicole Egan stripped everything to the bone and helped us redefine the show.
The motion theory to this show was developed early on by Thomas Maloney, a supremely talented animator at ESPN. Lee Burg, the versatile and gifted, came in later to create tons of designs and animations to help fill out the package. The two of them killed it on motion (and design). The motion theory is to mimic a digital experience with an ipad-esque magazine. The vertical slide is key. We made this the singular move for all animations where it then ghosts on parts of the design of each animation during the on move to feel unique. If you watch each animation scroll up, they’re all the same, yet they feel so different. This was key for making sure the control room had seamless versatility. We built in so many permutations into this show creatively that we had to limit their options so they could be nimble, thus less accidents.
Since it is an unscripted show I wanted to accompany the dialogue with real time story telling capabilities. This required intelligent building. We designated 3 screen areas for content. Half/Full and Minibar (far right strip). Every design we made had to be able to live in any location at the switch of a dropdown. And we also wanted to get away from too many stats/columns/rows/info graphics. We want people to read the basics, and do so quickly. Anyway, here is a snippet of the designs. Some from photoshop, some from the actual control room output for air.
Art Direction: Timothy J. O’Shaughnessy
Sr. Creative Direction: Chris Mantzaris
Producer: Marissa Mangino
Lead Design/Animation: Jeremy Simches/Thomas Maloney/Lee Burg/Nicole Egan
Viz Build/Design: Amy Vanderbur, David Pirozolli